Ausfront, trading as Modern Solar and Modern Streamline Roller Shutters, fined $7500 over unsolicited sales

AAP – MAY 12, 20142:40PM

A PERTH company has been fined $7500 for violating laws related to cooling off periods for unsolicited sales contracts.

Ausfront, trading as Modern Solar and Modern Streamline Roller Shutters, pleaded guilty in Perth Magistrates Court last week to nine charges of violating Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

The company made unsolicited agreements with two consumers and failed to provide them with the correct information about how to terminate their contracts during the compulsory 10-day cooling off period.

In September 2012, a sales agent cold-called a Balga pensioner, visited her home and sold her solar panels worth $8800.

High pressure sales tactics were used to convince the woman to sign up, and when she later realised she could not afford the purchase, the agent refused to cancel the contract, Consumer Protection said on Monday.

In April last year, a Gosnells couple made a website request for a free quote on roller shutters and a salesperson attended their home, signing them up to a $6000 contract without notifying them of their cooling off rights.

Consumer Protection acting commissioner Gary Newcombe said contracts could be signed during home visits but there could be no payments, goods delivered or services carried out until the 10 business day cooling off period expired.

“The ‘unsolicited consumer agreement’ or door-to-door trading provisions of the ACL are designed to protect consumers, particularly those who are being sold products in their home who may be subjected to high pressure sales tactics and are not given the time to think clearly about their purchase, which in these cases involved considerable amounts of money,” he said.

Community groups reject Brandis race hate reform

Date – May 15, 2014 – 5:46AM

An overwhelming majority of ethnic and community groups oppose the Abbott government’s proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act.

As pressure builds on Attorney-General George Brandis to justify his crusade to throw out the so-called ”‘Bolt law”’ by watering down protections against racial vilification, an analysis of public submissions to the review of his draft bill reveals at least 60 groups have lined up against the changes.

They include the Law Council of Australia, the Arab Council of Australia, the Chinese Australian Forum, the ACTU, the Lebanese Muslim Association and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

A number of groups representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders oppose it and on Wednesday, the head of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, Warren Mundine, warned that the debate over race hate laws could derail the push for constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians.

Just four submissions made public so far support the idea of repealing Section 18C and D of the act.

One of those is the the Adelaide Institute, established by Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben.

Fairfax Media revealed Mr Toben has strongly backed the Abbott government’s plans in a personal submission that welcomed the proposal as a challenge to ”Jewish supremacism” in Australia. He described the current act as a ”flawed law, which only benefits Jewish-Zionist-Israeli interests” and effectively a ”Holocaust protection law”.

Senator Brandis this week told Parliament that he had received ”some thousands” of submissions but declined to answer a question from the opposition whether a single major community group had backed changes.

”I am in the process at the moment of going through those many submissions … [they] reflect a variety of views across the Australian community on what is an important and difficult issue,” he said.

Following the end of the consultation period, a bill will be drafted and put before cabinet ”‘within weeks”’, according to Senator Brandis’ office – but submissions received will not be made public to justify pushing ahead against the groups opposed.

Labor senator Lisa Singh said Senator Brandis must explain why he is keeping submissions secret. ”We have to assume he is refusing to make them public because the only people supporting him are right-wing extremists such as Fredrick Toben and the Adelaide Institute,” she said.

Mr Mundine said the debate over race hate laws had ”put a log on the track that can derail the process” of constitutional recognition for indigenous Australians.

”I think they really need to get it off the agenda,” he said.

Mr Mundine stressed that his views on plans to repeal section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act were his own and not the council’s. ”I know it was a promise of the government before the election, but I think it has dragged energy away from the government,” he said.

”My personal opinion is that I can’t see any reform in this area getting up and it needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.”

In its submission, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples said the Racial Discrimination Act was a ”‘keystone for reconciliation in Australia between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and the settler state”.

ICAC hears of bags of lies and dirty cash

ALICIA WOOD – THE DAILY TELEGRAPH – MAY 13, 201410:00PM

ALLEGED Liberal party bagman and ex-Chris Hartcher employee Ray Carter yesterday told the Independent Commission Against Corruption the former minister asked him to lie about a political donation paid into a slush fund.

Mr Carter told ICAC $4000 in party donations were allegedly “washed” through the law firm Hartcher Reid, where Mr Hartcher’s nephew works. “Mr Hartcher asked me to accept that I took it. I refused that. Mr Hartcher knows very well about that … I gave it straight to him. I can’t be more clearer than that,” Mr Carter said.

Mr Carter told ICAC both EightbyFive and the Free Enterprise Foundation were used to wash illegal donations — including from property developers. EightbyFive paid more than $400,000 into the Liberal party’s coffers and the Free Enterprise foundation paid more than $700,000.

Mr Carter said he confronted Arthur Sinodinos at a Central Coast event while Senator Sinodinos was president of the NSW branch of the party because he was angry about the EFA investigation into sham company EightbyFive.

“I went up and spoke to him (Senator Sinodinos) — I said what have you done?” Mr Carter said. “He said it doesn’t affect the federals, it only affects the state.”

Mr Sinodinos’ barrister Robert Newlinds SC asked if he confronted the senator because he thought “the best thing to do was to keep (EightbyFive) secret?”

“Yes,” Mr Carter said.

Tim Koelma, another Hartcher staffer who allegedly ran the EightbyFive slush fund out of Mr Hartcher’s office, also gave evidence at ICAC yesterday and was warned repeatedly by Commissioner Megan Latham and Counsel Assisting Geoffrey Watson SC about the penalties for lying to ICAC.

He told ICAC EightbyFive was a legitimate business — despite being unable to prove he spoke to any of the clients he worked for, or provide any examples of the work he did.

Yours respectfully,

UPWA is the only political party that calls a spade a spade

Australian corruption inquiry could ensnare prime minister

By Mike Head – 9 May 2014

Amid deep dissatisfaction within the corporate establishment over the mooted imposition of new taxes in the government’s first budget next Tuesday, indications have emerged that a corruption inquiry underway in Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s home state could possibly be used against him.

A feature article in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday reported that an inquiry being conducted by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in New South Wales was “inching closer” to Abbott’s office.

According to the article, written by Neil Chenoweth, who has closely followed the workings of ICAC, several connections link Abbott to ICAC allegations of bribery and illegal campaign donations by property developers that have rocked Abbott’s Liberal Party this year.

The article appeared a day after ICAC announced it would adjourn its hearings from next week until August 4 to investigate further evidence of “serious electoral funding irregularities” involving the Liberal Party. The delay effectively leaves the stench of the corruption allegations hanging over the party for at least three more months, and perhaps longer, with the deadline for ICAC’s report postponed until December.

The adjournment was strenuously opposed by the barristers representing Abbott’s Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos, who stood aside in March after being named in the inquiry, and two former state government ministers who resigned after being named.

In recent weeks, ICAC hearings have already claimed the scalp of NSW State Premier Barry O’Farrell who quit, ostensibly over failing to declare the gift of an expensive bottle of red wine. O’Farrell was swiftly replaced by Mike Baird, who is regarded as more closely attuned to the requirements of the financial markets.

Wednesday’s article was a signal that a similar fate could perhaps befall Abbott, depending on how the business elite judges the performance of his government, starting with Tuesday’s budget. Three potential links between Abbott and the corruption allegations were raised.

First, Chenoweth wrote, “Questions have emerged over Tony Abbott’s role in selecting Karen McNamara as Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Dobell despite doubts over her fund-raising claims.” As the article explained, Abbott was widely reported to be behind an April 2012 decision by the Liberal Party’s NSW state executive to instal McNamara as a candidate for the 2013 election.

Second, any investigation of NSW Liberal Party finances inevitably involves scrutiny of federal Liberal fund-raising. Chenoweth reported: “It’s done by the same people, the same structures, there are constant crossovers. John Caputo, who was questioned over cheques he gave to former Energy Minister Chris Hartcher, is Abbott’s chief fund-raiser in Warringah and works with Treasurer Joe Hockey’s funding body.”

Hartcher is one of the state ministers forced to quit, and Warringah is Abbott’s Sydney north shore electorate.

Third, the level of donations poured into Liberal Party slush funds since political donations from property developers were banned in NSW in 2009 makes it difficult to accept that Abbott and his advisers had no knowledge of the use of these funds to thwart the ban.

The previous state Labor government introduced that ban in a bid to cast off its own discredited image as a developers’ party, following revelations of corrupt donations to Labor politicians and municipal councilors. But the evidence reported daily from ICAC in recent months shows that both the Labor and Liberal parties are up to their necks in soliciting donations from developers and other corporate interests, in return for political favours.

Many details remain murky, and it appears that some of the accusations are bound up with fierce factional infighting in the NSW Liberal Party. As the WSWS noted when O’Farrell was ousted, history demonstrates that scandals in politics are a crucial means by which conflicting elements in ruling circles pursue their underlying agendas.

O’Farrell’s replacement Baird, an ex-merchant banker, soon announced his support for accelerated privatisations in NSW, which is not only Australia’s most populous state but home to its biggest financial centre—Sydney. Within days, Baird unveiled what can only be described as a cabinet purge, replacing five ministers and adopting a line-up more closely identified with the interests of finance capital. Two of the new appointees, Dominic Perrottet and Rob Stokes, were corporate lawyers, while Andrew Constance, the new treasurer, is a former Microsoft corporate affairs consultant. Baird declared that his ministry had “a hunger to transform NSW.”

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s budget, discontent in sections of big business with Abbott has intensified. First, the prime minister refused to drop his promised paid parental leave scheme, which will levy large companies 1.5 percent on their corporate tax to provide six months’ leave on full pay, in the name of boosting female workforce participation.

Then, Abbott indicated that the budget will include a 1 or 2 percent levy on high-income recipients, in order to put a gloss of “fairness” on measures to reduce the budget deficit, alongside sweeping welfare and other spending cuts. Finally, the government confirmed that the budget will contain fuel excise increases, adding to business and personal petrol bills.

A just released survey of more than 500 company directors, conducted last month, reported declining confidence in the Abbott government. Only 30 percent of those polled by the Australian Institute of Company Directors expected the government to have a positive impact on their business decision-making, a sharp drop from the 70 percent recorded just after Abbott took office last September.

Today’s editorial in the Australian sounded another warning to Abbott, insisting that the budget must not only axe thousands of public sector jobs, as promised, but go far further in slashing welfare payments, especially for young jobless workers, as well as pension and superannuation entitlements. Denouncing the planned tax levy and fuel excise increases, it declared that Abbott and Treasurer Hockey must not “squib hard decisions” or “the fiscal challenge will become more dire and they’ll have less political capital at their disposal.”

Other aspects of the government’s pro-business agenda, such as the abolition of mining and carbon taxes, are likely to remain stalled in the Senate, where the Liberal-National Coalition failed to secure a majority in last year’s election. That was despite the overwhelming public disgust towards the previous Labor government, which did everything it could to deliver the requirements of the financial markets.

Whether the corruption allegations will be used against Abbott is not yet clear, but there are certainly mounting frustrations in ruling circles with his government’s ability, and the capacity of the parliamentary system itself, to fully impose their dictates on the working class.

———- Forwarded message ———- From: Tammy, Amnesty International Australia <actioncentre@amnesty.org.au> Date: 6 May 2014 14:17 Subject: People have a right to be protected from bigotry To: Unity Party WA – info@unitywa.org

People should be protected from abuse and intimidation based on their race.

In Australia, the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to do or say things that ‘offend, insult or humiliate’ a person due to their race, ethnicity, colour or nationality.

But, earlier this year, Attorney-General George Brandis drafted changes to the Act, claiming that people have “the right to be bigots”.

If Mr Brandis’ changes are adopted, saying racist things will only be unlawful if it causes a person to fear physical harm and/or encourages others to be hateful.

Even racist comments that reach this high benchmark will be excused if they’re made in the public domain, like in the media. We know this can heighten racial tensions and lead to awful events like the Cronulla riots.

The reality is, these changes will make our race hate laws so narrow, they’ll be effectively useless.

Rights come with responsibilities. Freedom of expression must be balanced against the harm caused by racist abuse. This is what the Racial Discrimination Act does. Urge the Prime Minister to save the RDA.

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